Enabling the Shia Axis to do our dirty work in the Middle East offers Western policymakers honey laced with poison.

The Islamic State’s Mesopotamian blitz has evoked a consensus for action among Americans not seen since the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll indicates a startling two-thirds of Americans support confrontation with the group. It is likely that only a threat so disturbing as the Islamic State (ISIS) could have compelled the Obama administration to backtrack on six years of established policy and initiate its own military operations in Iraq this past summer.

The more ISIS gains in strength, commits atrocities like the brutal and public murder of American journalists, and openly threatens the American homeland, the range of the policy debate over how to confront the terrorist group will narrow.

In his address to the country last evening, the president repeated his promise to“degrade and destroy”the organization. The means by which we go about doing this, however, are arguably just as critical for American national security.

The president said the effort to defeat ISIS will consist of airstrikes, a “broad coalition,” and a number of other counter-terrorism efforts.He also notably stated we cannot rely on Bashar al Assad’s regime, and vowed to continue to support the Syrian opposition as a part of the effort. He said nothing, however, about, the regional actor that arguably has the most to say about the ultimate outcome of the fight if it so chooses: Iran.

“It would be foolish not to align with Assad against ISIS”

Ever since ISIS seized Mosul in June, voices from across the political spectrum have increasingly suggested that we turn to a common enemy—Assad, Tehran, and the forces of Shia Islamism in the Middle East—to defeat ISIS. In June, Sen. Lindsay Graham publicly floated the idea of cooperating with Iran against the Islamic State, comparing it to Roosevelt and Churchill’s alliance with Stalin against Hitler.

Writing recently in the New York Times, Northeastern University professor Max Abrams argued it would be foolish not to align with Assad against ISIS, granted that the Syrian president unlike our common Sunni enemy, presents no direct threat to American civilians.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, political science professor Mohsen Milani has argued that a joint struggle between the United States and Iran against ISIS would be a “positive step” that could conceivably enable the Obama administration to “turn a new leaf” with the Iranian regime, and “overcome 35 years of estrangement.”

Some, like Graham, see cooperating with Iran against ISIS as a simple question of realpolitik. Others, such as Milani, see it as an opportunity for a long overdue, full-fledged, strategic rapprochement between Washington and Tehran reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s overture to Communist China in 1972.

The arguments for enabling the Shia Axis to do what must be done in the Middle East through a deft maneuver of Machiavellian-like statecraft are ostensibly compelling; unfortunately, however, they only offer Western policymakers honey laced with poison.

This Is Not the 1970s

The appeals to America’s historical precedents in cooperating with bad guys to beat other really bad guys, whether it be in the 1940s, or the 1970s, fail to account for the strategic endgame that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Nixon and Henry Kissinger pursued in the alliance with Stalin and rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), respectively.

After the Big Three crushed Nazi Germany, the Atlantic Alliance formed almost immediately, and went about containing the advancing influence of the Soviet Union using all instruments of statecraft available, including the threat to use force, and the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe. Are U.S. policymakers prepared to treat Iran the same way following a hypothetical defeat of ISIS? Comparisons to the Nixon administration’s recognition of the PRC in the 1970s makes a similar miscalculation:

Nixon and Kissinger’s decision to exploit fissures in the relationship between the two Communist giants assumed Beijing and Moscow would remain relatively powerful, and at each other’s throats. After a hypothetical rapprochement with Iran aimed at defeating ISIS, what other regional force would remain to contain Iranian power?

The president’s pledges to “degrade” and “destroy” ISIS are refreshing. His qualifications as to how this will be accomplished, however, reveal their limits. Indeed, he has retained his promise that no American ground troops will see action. The last time a U.S. president set out to destroy a Sunni Islamist network that threatened the homeland, he dispatched military forces to Afghanistan, and declared without instigating much controversy that the nation would defend itself “at any price.”

The contrast is noteworthy, and demonstrates that despite the surprising public support for military action, the current administration has few politically desirable options. After years of frustration fighting two wars in the Middle East, the prospect of yet another ground commitment to Iraq is still overwhelmingly unpopular with the American public.

If the history of America’s small wars has taught us anything, however, it is that there is no substitute for dominating contested territory in defeating groups like ISIS. Such is evident in the contrast between the surge in Iraq in 2006 and Operation Rolling Thunder against North Vietnam, or al Qaeda’s resurgence in the face of the CIA’s success in assassinating thousands of the network’s top lieutenants.

No amount of power delivered from the air is alone sufficient to change the political realities on the ground. Without the willingness to fight ISIS for its political control of the territory it occupies, the White House will need to turn to others to finish the job it wants done. Hence the sudden attractiveness to some of the Iranian Mullocracy and its proxies in the Levant.

Who Will Contain Iran?

ISIS’ defeat without the presence of substantial ground forces that would check Iranian political influence would pave the way for Tehran to become the region’s most powerful actor. Prior to 2003, the job of containing Iran belonged to Saddam Hussein. After 2003, it belonged to the U.S. military. Since the American withdrawal from Iraq, it has increasingly fallen to the divided and volatile forces of Sunni Islamism. If ISIS is defeated on Iranian terms, then no other power will stand in the way of Iran dominating the Middle East. Indeed, there would be nothing to stop the so-called “Shia Crescent” from Tehran to Beruit that Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned about in 2004.

Some proponents of a rapprochement between Washington and Iran acknowledge this reality, and suggest it is a worthy tradeoff. Writing in the The Telegraph, Sir Malcom Rifkind noted that, unlike Churchill’s and Roosevelt’s alliance with Soviet Union in the 1940s, “Iran will never be a superpower or a global threat.” Some have taken the argument even further, and claimed Iran and the United States have the capacity to become strategic partners rather than mere temporary allies.

In December of last year, David Patrikarikos argued in the New York Times that Iran’s support for terrorists, virulent anti American rhetoric, and enmity with Israel are more the product of historical animosity rather than ideological fervor. Thus, Iran’s leaders are rational, and would therefore respond to American overtures of friendship. Such cooperation could allegedly foster solutions between Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas;

Iran could become a regional ally in countering Russian and Chinese influence in the Middle East; and, most importantly, Iran would become an invaluable partner in fighting Sunni extremism. Both lines of reasoning rest on a hopeful yet unsound assessment of the Islamic Republic. Rifkind is most likely correct that the Islamic Republic couldn’t possibly threaten Western interests in the manner of the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, an Iranian hegemony in the Middle East would mark the transfer of power over one of the world’s most strategically important regions to an avowed enemy of Western interests. It would prove a critical asset to Russia, and perhaps China, in their attempt to challenge American influence globally. Most of all, an Iran capable of projecting power from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean would present its chief rivals, Israel and Saudi Arabia, with few options of sorting through their differences other than war.

Indeed, preventing Iranian hegemony in the Middle East is one of the key reasons both of those countries are allies of the United States in the first place. War between Israel, Iran, and the Gulf States would be a conflict in size and scope not seen in decades.

It would be the sort of war that would call for involving outside powers, and therefore, not unlike the Balkans prior to World War I, catalyze conflicts between great powers elsewhere. Such a conflict would most certainly mark the end of “Pax Americana” that has fostered unprecedented peace and prosperity during, and after the Cold War.

Resetting Iran Is Fantasy

Proponents of rapprochement, such as Patrikarikos, however, argue that Iran would never seek to dominate the Middle East in the first place, and moreover, that it would likely become an American ally. The call for American policymakers to appeal to Iran’s better nature, however, has a striking resemblance to the Obama administration’s “reset” with Russia. True enough, Iran’s leaders could surprise us all, and choose to become the strategic partners we would wish. It is delusional, however, to imagine that a foreign government will act in accordance with our wishes if nothing compels them to do so.

After the Obama administration signed the STARTTreaty, withdrew support for a ballistic missile shield in Eastern Europe, and conceded on other matters to Russia, Vladimir Putin was free to take Obama’s offer of a new strategic partnership, or leave it. Rather than do what the White House thought was in Russia’s best interest, however, Putin unsurprisingly decided to do what he thought was in Russia’s best interest.

Those who claim Iran will drop the “Death to America” chants at Friday prayers, cease supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, and join the United States in stabilizing the Middle East in a manner friendly to Western interests, if only the United States were to make the first move in a rapprochement, base their analysis on nothing other than mere hope. It is nice to believe that Iran’s leaders would do what we want them to do; it is naïve to believe they will just because we think that they should.

The White House should remain resolute in its promises to destroy ISIS. It would be foolish, however, to do so at the cost of handing Tehran a strategic vacuum in the Middle East. This reality undoubtedly leaves the administration few options. If the United States is going to annihilate ISIS without Shia militias determining the final outcome, then it must find some other force that can do this. Whether this group consists of Iraqi Kurds, other Sunni forces, or some combination thereof remains to be seen. If the military determines such an outcome cannot be accomplished without U.S. ground forces, then so be it. The president’s pledge to cut Assad out of the equation is a positive development; he should remain committed to it as events unfold.

ISIS brings war to America, and America should respond in kind. Before taking action, however, American policymakers should grasp how they want the ultimate resolution to look. If the United States seeks to prevent the state of affairs in the Middle East from becoming even worse than they already are, and, seeks to preserve its tenuous hold on Pax Americana, then paving the way to Iranian regional dominance is no answer.

Iran does not have influence over the region’s various Shia actors by default, but is helped by the way the Arab world regimes have historically treated Shia actors in the region.

The “Shi’ite Crescent” has been a self-serving and self-fulfilling prophecy. Since its inception in 1979, never has the Islamic Republic of Iran had such influence and control over a range of state and non-state actors. In Iraq, Iran has unparalleled control over the Shia-dominated state and the country’s range of Shia militias currently fighting so-called Islamic State (IS). Elsewhere, Iranian influence over Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria’s al-Assad regime has been reinforced since the outbreak of conflict in Syria and its transformation into a regionalised sectarian proxy war.

While for Iran it is mostly geostrategic interests that are at stake, for the others it is their survival. IS and its backers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf have made clear their intent to reverse the Shia ascent in the region and eliminate the Shia community altogether. In other words, Iranian influence in the region has as much to do with the policies and reactions of the Arab world as it does Iran’s own maneuverings. Iran does not have influence over the region’s various Shia actors by default, but is helped by the way the Arab world regimes have historically treated Shia actors in the region.

Traditionally, they have afforded little political and human rights to their Shia constituents. They have also treated their Shia communities as part of broader regional problems, particularly because of the religious and political ties that exist between the region’s different Shia communities. These ties do not necessarily mean that they are conducive to some form of pan-regional Shia alliance but, rather, that the Arab world has identified the region’s Shia communities as threats to their authority.

Iran’s influence in the region today is nothing new. Under the Shah, Iran was also proactive, often embroiled in conflict or disputes with the Arab world and often supporting rebel or revolutionary forces, like the Kurds in Iraq. When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the Shah regime and came to power, he called upon the Islamic world to rise up against their autocratic leaders. Whilst some Arab governments, like Syria, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization sent their congratulations to him, there was unease among the autocratic governments and monarchies of the broader region. Khomeini’s Iran permitted the notion that change and revolution was possible. The emergence of the Islamic Republic and the ousting of the Shah showed that the rule and power of despots in the region was not impregnable.

Similarly, the over-arching and generally simplistic narrative emphasizing the link between Shia actors in the region and Iran that we see today pre-dates not only the Syria conflict and the 2003 Iraq war but also the Islamic Republic of Iran itself. Arab world states have historically played on divisions and sensitivities toward Iranian influence; divisions between Arabs and Persians and divisions in Islam between Sunnis and Shias. Anti-government opposition figures, and Shia political movements more generally, have often, if not always, been charged with accusations of being Iranian agents. Under Saddam Hussein and his predecessors, the Iraqi state regularly accused its Shia community of being an Iranian fifth column.

Like the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 2003 invasion of Iraq had an instant impact on the sectarian polarization of the region. In perception, the empowerment of Iraq’s Shia community after 2003 was seen as the empowerment of the Arab world’s other marginalized Shia communities. In much the same way as the Iranian revolution had done in 1979 (although for both Shia and Sunni Arabs), the removal of the Baath regime and the fall of Saddam Hussein seemed to promise the deliverance of the Shia as a whole.

The moment of the falling of Saddam’s statue, with the help of the US Army.

The Shias’ dominance in the new Iraq also concerned the rest of the region because of the considerable extent to which they were organized and mobilized on the basis of their Shia identity. Arab world regimes have historically sought to project, through both coercive and non-coercive means, a vision and image of unity in their effort to legitimize their rule and contain internal dissent. Iraq after 2003, like the Iranian revolution in 1979, has undermined this projection. Further, Iraq’s Shia actors entered the new Iraq with extensive links to Iran, which gave Iraq’s Shia opposition groups, as well as Kurdish groups, extensive support in their effort to overthrow the Baath regime.

The toppling of the Baath regime could have triggered the same sentiments, moreover, as the 1979 Iranian revolution, for the region as a whole, and indeed echo those sentiments triggered by the Arab Spring protests, among a population yearning for democratic and human rights. However, the toxic circumstances that followed the toppling of the Baath regime; the backdrop against which the war took place and the Arab world’s immediate mobilization against the new Iraq, before it was given a chance to repair and rebuild, as well as the narrative that came from Sunni Arab actors in Iraq and beyond, ensured that the fall of Saddam Hussein was seen as the fall of the Sunnis and the rise of the Shia and Iran.

WhenKing Abdullah of Jordon referred to the dangers of a “Shia crescent” in December 2004, one stretching from Damascus to Tehran, passing through Baghdad, the definition of the Iraqi state was still unclear at the time and it was equally unclear whether Iraq would come to be ruled by a Shia alliance. Yet, Iraq’s neighbors in the Arab world had already decided to characterize the new Iraq as an Iranian client-state; its Shia parties, Iranian proxies.

In other words, the post-2003 Iraq did not have to exacerbate sectarianism and polarize the region further along sectarian lines. But in response to this characterization, a flood of jihadists used the Arab world states as a transit point to enter Iraq and wreak carnage, with the acquiescence of the governments of those states. Militants received active support from either Arab world governments or wealthy individuals from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

As the trajectory of the post-2003 Iraq shows, it was in response to the Sunni mobilization against the new Iraq that the Shias contested elections as a unified bloc, despite their ideological, political and social divisions. This came in 2005, when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani brought Iraq’s Shia parties and movements together in order to ensure that a resilient Sunni insurgency, backed by the Arab world, did not take them back under Baathist or Sunnis Arab dictatorial rule, which cross-sections of Iraq’s Shia community feared at the time. As one Iraqi Shia noted in 2007: “I would much rather live in a jungle than a Baathist prison,” referring to the chaos and the civil war that had engulfed the country at the time.

Shunned by the Arab world, Iraq’s Shia-dominated state was effectively pushed into Iran’s orbit of influence after 2003. More recently, Iran was the only outside power that deployed advisers and special-forces in the country in June 2014, when ISIS took control of Mosul. While the west dithered as Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, was being targeted by IS, Iran responded almost immediately to a threat that threatened the Iraqi state and the Shia community itself. Iranian support has manifested itself in the form of arms and funds; organizational and technical assistance.That, inevitably, translates into some form of influence and control.

The post-2003 Sunni Arab rejection of the new Iraq; followed by the sectarian proxy war in Syria and the anti-Shia basis on which IS functions and on which the Arab world states legitimize and strengthen their rule, has created a unifying thread that mobilizes and unites the Shia, despite their own internal divisions. In other words, any Shia dependence on Iran, whether this occurs in Iraq, or Syria – where the Shia Alawites sect is traditionally seen as heretic by most Shias – or in Yemen – where the Houthis belong to a sect of Shia Islam (Zaydism) that is in fact closer to Sunni Islam – is not necessarily a matter of choice or of default, but one of necessity.

This has proved pivotal in bridging the divide that has existed between different sections of the Shia community both within Iraq and in the region. It has also transformed the Shia identity into a powerful galvanizing force, particularly since the rise of IS and the outbreak of conflict in Syria.

Shias throughout the region retain a strong sense of their national identity and seldom will you meet a Shia that rejects his or her national identity. But with recent conflict in Syria, the rise of IS and the anti Shiasectarian narrative from the Arab world has done is to coalesce the region’s Shia community around the Shia identity, despite their political, social and ideological differences. In other words, the notion of a ‘Shia crescent’might be a greater reality today than it was before when first asserted by KingAbdullah in 2004. But it has been both a self-serving and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is correct that the Shia have been marginalized throughout the ME. They have also been murdered quite regularly in Sunni-dominated Pakistan over several decades without any one even bothering to report it in the Western media. What Israel and the Sunni Wahhabi Arabsheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf fear most, is not a nuclear Iran (as they would falsely have us believe) but a politically and economically powerful Iran, an emerging regional superpower.

Unlike the Arab monarchies, Iran has chosen to lead an independent, non-aligned path since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. By supporting the Shia in various parts of the region, it has not only bolstered it’s support among Arab populations, it has also checked Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Syria. It is in fact the first time in Iran’s entire post-Islamic history that it has been successful in creating and maintaining such influence among Arab populations. This is in fact what the Saudis and the Zionists in Israel and the US find most objectionable: Iran’s desire and ability to be become a regional superpower by creating a network of supporters throughout the region.

Many in the West do not realize that the Arab-Persian divide is far greater than the Sunni-Shia Divide. This is a historical fact that is often over-looked in the West. This Arab-Persian rivalry has been a recurring theme in ME history. I believe that it is to Iran’s credit that it has been able to increase its influence in the region by fostering better relations with various Arab groups whose natural inclination would normally be to distrust Persians.

Israel is always very keen to point out that the various Muslim communities in the region hate each other and would like to kill each other at every opportunity. However, the rise of al Quiada, the Taliban and now ISIS have proven that when required, powerful regional groups, whether Arab, Persian or Kurdish, are able to fight off aggression by extremists, even when the most powerful country on earth (the USA) manages to fail over and over again.

The simple fact is, that with Saudi backed Wahhabism – ISIL, Al Qaeda, Boko Haren, Al Shabaab – running wild in the Middle East and Africa, Iran is now seen as a moderate country.

Iran’s leaders need the West, and the young people of Iran embrace Western culture, so let us hope that this latest deal leads to a thaw in relations between Iran and the West.

Let us also not forget that the Shia are in a majority in Iraq and Bahrain, where historically they have been treated very badly.